Vested interests on both sides of the Irish sea plot to force the hot Irish favourite out of the Epsom Derby. The trainer's daughter is kidnapped in London, and back in Ireland, a small flower importer is forced into the drugs business.Scobie Tierney - womaniser, drinker, gambler and ... policeman, is over for the race as a friend of the girl and her family.Can he track her down before the race deadline runs out while still keeping a close eye on the flower man and his activities? English financier Alex Halley's horse Halleys Comet is the ante post hot favourite for the Epsom Derby. With his business in deep trouble, he needs his horse to win to clinch a sales deal with an oil sheikh which would rescue his company before his investors realise their money is gone.Widower Kim Carstairs, a retired Australian communications mogul, has the second favourite Sorcerors Magic. He hopes to bring his partially estranged daughter to England for the race to allow the private detective he has hired gather evidence of her much older husband's unfaithfulness with the wife of paraplegic lawyer Theo Haskell.Despite his almost total paralysis, Haskell plots revenge against his wife and her lover who have openly flaunted their perverted sex driven relationship in front of his eyes.In Ireland, Lord Henry Mortimer Banks trains the young horse Excalibur. After two mediocre runs on soft ground, Excalibur jumps to the head of the betting after a scintillating run on faster ground in a Navan race.Halley's desperation to win the big race sees him make one attempt to nobble the Irish horse before it travels over to England. When this fails, he turns to Milos Sekovitch, one of his main investors. A shady character involved in the porn and drug business, Sekovitch plans the kidnapping of the trainer's youngest daugher Eloise, to force Lord Henry to withdraw his horse.In Ireland, Pearse Doherty also has his reasons for wanting the Irish horse scratched from the race. Having taken over the gambling debt of a small flower importer, he has been forcing the man to bring drugs in with his weekly shipments. With Detective Sergeant Scobie Tierney sniffing around, he plans one last major drug shipment in cahoots with his old pal Sekovitch.Now a friend of the Mortimer Banks family and over in England for the big race, Scobie becomes heavily involved in all the action. The cards are heavily stacked against them as they race against time to rescue Eloise before being forced to withdraw Excalibur.Excalibur might be a pedigree racehorse but Scobie is an out and out stayer!